Community Brag Posts

Modified to have more of a modern style. Removed shelf and half the X. Also, lengthened it to 11ft. Love!

Love getting to watch my daughter play with stuff that i made her.

We used MDF, drop-leaf lockable hinges for the leaves, and piano hinges. I wouldn't recommend MDF because it wasn't strong enough for the screws and we ended up having to add bits of plywood to reinforce the areas for the hinges. We also put pegboard on the back to avoid things popping out the other end, and I'm planning on getting some hooks to hang crafty things like scissors and glue guns.

Despite the modifications we had to make, I love my little sewing table! It fits perfectly under our dining room table and but has tons of workspace when it's folded out. Perfect for a small, cramped house! The finished project isn't quite as bright yellow as the flash made it seem, but it is still bright and happy!

I modified the Small Old English Style Farmhouse Dining Table plan to build a writing desk.   I used five 1x6 boards for the top for a width of 27.5 inches.   I made my desk 56 inches in length.  I put the drawer on the long side like a pencil drawer.   I did use the legs that Ana recommended in the plan.   I love how it turned out.  I used dark walnut danish oil and dark wax for the finish.  

This was my first project to tackle alone. It twisted a little on me not having another set of hands to hold things square, but it stands straight and doesn't wobble! Good enough for me. Plus it is an outdoor piece of furniture. The plans were easy to follow and I added 3" to the height of the legs so it was the same height as my arm rests on my chair.

This was our first time building furniture. We built our new bed over the course of four days. We don't own any power saws so opted to give the cut list to our local hardware store who only charged us about $50 for all the cuts.

Day one consisted of picking up all the lumber, sorting into the three sections and labeling all the pieces. Day two was the longest day, lots of drilling and measuring and screwing and gluing and even the first two coats of shellac. On the third day we built the drawers, and finished coating everything with shellac. The last day was the installation of the drawer hardware, including the slides.

We're quite happy with the quality of our work, and appreciate the directions and plans. Though we aren't fine furniture makers, and probably none of our corners are 100% square, we finished in the time we thought, pretty close to budget, and with the satisfaction of doing it ourselves.

Modified Ana's plans to omit the chalkboard and make larger.  Measures 75"h x 36"wide.  All 1x2s, cuts are 2 @ 75", 2 @ 34 1/2", 2 @ 73 1/2", 2 @ 31 1/2".

These were such a gratifying project to build! Used a 1x4” for the top front frame and cut a curve in it to give a Craftsman vibe. I really like the look of the retired IKEA Norna bookcase and that inspired the 2x2” framed base painted in a contrasting color. I also finished the top with a full 1x2” frame with mitered corners to make it look more “finished.” If I were to do it again, I’d cut the top plywood shorter to create less overhang on the sides. Eventually I’d like to paint a design in white paint on the top!

This is the first time I have ever built anything and I'm very pleased with the results. The stain is water based 'charcoal gray'. It took 2 - 3 rounds of sanding, one coat of pre-stain, two coats of stain, and 3 coats of polyurathane. Total investment was about $350. It took me 3 months (I didn't have but an hour here and an hour there to work on it). My main concern was that I make it so that the screws were not visible. So I drilled a hole the size of the head of the screw about 1/4 in deep (then the typical pre-drill for the actual screw), screwed it together, then glued a wooden 'plug' in the hole. I'm very happy with the result of that. I also struggled a bit with how to attach the side rails - I ended up using 2 door hinges at each corner. The bed frame is completely separate from the mattress. I have a metal frame that is working fine, so the wooden frame actually does not touch the metal mattress frame. It is just built around it. Tools I used: Hammer, Paint Brush, Electric palm sander, Miter saw and a drill. The miter saw was huge for this project. 

I built the coat rack along with the mail sorter and rustic bench for the long hallway to the garage since our new house doesn't have a mud room. I modified it to a length of 6'.  All but a couple pieces are made from poplar.  I burnt the stained pieces with a torch, then put a quick coat of Special Walnut on them.  The painted pieces are Rustoleum Weathered Wood.  Hooks are from Home Depot.

So my sister's house is on a rural, sandy lot. Did I mention sand...lots of sand. Her tile doesn't react well to sand-covered shoes , so they needed a place for guests to take off street shoes to replace them with spa booties. I offered to build them a storage bench for that purpose.
I modified the bench to make it shorter as per my sister's request. She also wanted the lower shelf modified to place a boot tray on it to catch the sand. I suggested replacing the lower shelf with rails to place the shoes on so the sand could fall off onto the boot tray. We nailed finish nails into the legs under the rails and slid the tray onto them. Now she can remove the tray easily to dispose of the...sand.
The finish on the body matches the mirror, which hangs above it. The lid of the bench was stained to match the finish on the doors, posts, etc. I used wrap around inset hinges from here: http://www.rocklerpro.com/product.cfm?page=5135&rrt=1
I checked this as a weekend project because of dry time for stain and poly.
Thank you, ANA for the awesome plans.

I absolutely loved Michaela's Kitchen Island (http://ana-white.com/2010/03/plans-michaelas-kitchen-island.html), so I modified it to suit my needs of having a table to place my cacti in the winter months. I modified the size, removed one of the shelves, and left the drawers out so that I could put my Texas stars.

This spring, my neighborhood started a community garden.  Five families came together to break ground, sow, tend, and give away our produce.  The local church close by allowed us to use their front lawn for the "Lakeside Community Garden," located in Duluth, MN.   Every Saturday during harvest season, we gave away our produce to the community.  I took on the project of building a farm stand.  One of our neighborhood families donated re-claimed lumber to the cause, and I started building.  I had research many farm stands on-line, and knew I needed two large boxes to hold the veggies, as well as a sign to indicate what produce we were giving away.